World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #10 Security Watch

Lowry: The CIA's record leading up to Sept. 11 was one of failure By Rich Lowry Article Last Updated: 08/25/2007 09:07:06 AM MDT

The new report from the CIA's inspector general about the spy agency's pre-9/11 failings could be titled, ''What We Did During Our Holiday From History.'' The stretch between the end of the Cold War and the Sept. 11 attacks was supposed to be a shiny new era of globalized peace and prosperity, to which an intelligence service was considered quaintly irrelevant.

The CIA conformed to the zeitgeist by remaining quaintly irrelevant. George Tenet presided over the agency, failing his way to the second-longest tenure of any director of central intelligence, a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a $4 million book advance. He made the Peter Principle work for him not just by advancing to his level of incompetence, but by benefiting from it handsomely.

Congressional Democrats pushed for the release of the scathing IG report, completed back in June 2005, to embarrass the Bush administration. But most of the failures identified in the report took place during the Clinton administration, which set the CIA's skewed priorities and selected Tenet in the first place. President Bush should be embarrassed only because he didn't fire Tenet upon taking office or after 9/11, while Bush also has failed to undertake a serious retooling of the sclerotic bureaucracy that is the CIA.

Tenet took terrorism seriously, ''sounding the alarm about the threat to many different audiences,'' in the words of the report. Maybe he should have gone on a lecture tour. Where Tenet fell down was in managing his agency. The thought may be father to the deed, but without the actual deed, the thought is only political cover in after-the-fact memoirs.

Tenet insists that he had a ''robust plan'' against al-Qaida. In reality, he only thought he had. He directed that such a plan be formulated, but according to the IG report, it never happened. Worse, Tenet did not ''work with the National Security Council to elevate the relative standing of counterterrorism in the formal ranking of intelligence priorities.''

In Tenet's defense, he operated within the context of a Clinton administration that basically was uninterested in intelligence. Tenet notes that the intelligence community lost 25 percent of its personnel in the 1990s and ''tens of billions of dollars in investment compared with the 1990 baseline.'' He implored the administration for funding increases in 1998 and 1999, but had to go ''outside established channels to work with then-Speaker Gingrich to obtain a $1.2 billion budgetary supplemental.''

Even with more resources, his managers repeatedly moved funds from counterterrorism programs to other needs, without ever raiding other programs to fund counterterrorism, according to the IG report. What could be more important than counterterrorism? Analytic resources were poured into addressing more pressing matters like the Balkans and the environment.

After 9/11, Clinton officials and Tenet argued whether the CIA had been granted the authority to kill Osama bin Laden, with the Clintonites, in a bout of retrospective bloodlust, insisting that it had. The IG report finds that restrictions on the CIA killing bin Laden had been ''arguably, although ambiguously, relaxed'' for a brief period in late 1998 and early 1999 (how Clintonian). But CIA managers refused ''to take advantage of the ambiguities,'' and even if they had, the agency didn't have the covert-action capability to kill bin Laden. Such was life during history's holiday.

What's more scandalous is how the CIA has escaped serious reform even today. Two CIA directors in a row have resisted the IG report's recommendation for an accountability board to evaluate the pre-9/11 performance of CIA officials. That word - not ''board,'' but ''accountability'' - raises hackles at Langley, where everyone is above-average at fighting al-Qaida. Even though as many as 60 CIA employees knew that two of the hijackers were in the U.S. before 9/11 and no one managed to get the word to the FBI, CIA Director Michael Hayden thinks holding anyone accountable for that or other failures would be ''distracting.'' And so the band plays on.

CK: St-Petersburg anarchists assert provocation

Caucasian Knot
23/8/2007

St-Petersburg anarchists assert that charge of blowing up the “Neva
Express” train is a provocation

The arrest of Andrei Kalyonov and Denis Zelenyuk, members of the
“Petersburg League of Anarchists,” on suspicion of blowing up the
“Neva Express” train is a deliberate provocation of special agencies,
Alexander Maishev, one of the participants of St-Petersburg’s movement
of anarchists, said in his interview to the “Caucasian Knot”
correspondent. In his opinion, Kalyonov and Zelenyuk got into the
FSB’s field of view several years ago because of their active civil
activities:

“Andrei Kalyonov is a member of the “Memorial” National Information
Centre (NIC) in St-Petersburg and a permanent participant of weekly
pickets against the war in the Caucasus... He took part in the action
against the G8 Summit in 2006, where he was exposed to preventive
arrest. He was repeatedly detained with anti-war leaflets in hand.”

Kalyonov and Zelenyuk were detained at Malaya Vishera railway station,
when, under the version of the investigation, the young men came to
the place of the train wreck to examine the territory. However, as the
detainees’ comrades are asserting, actually the young men, who were
delegates of the St-Petersburg League of Anarchists, were going to
Yaroslavl, to the 20th Congress of the Association of Anarchists’
Movement.

“On August 16, Andrei Kalyonov’s residence was searched, and nobody
was present during this action. Nobody knows what was found there, but
actually everything could be planted,” Alexander Maishev says.

Making his comments on the version of the investigation about any
links of the detained anarchists with Chechen Hasan Didigov who was
detained on August 21 on suspicion of taking part in the act of
terror, Mr Maishev has noted that none of the League members is
familiar with the third suspect.

“Elections are forthcoming. Half a year before Yeltsin’s resignation,
in September 1999, explosions of houses began in Moscow, which had
served an official pretext to start the second Chechen war and brought
Putin to power on the wave of chauvinism. The same starts now,”
Alexander Maishev thinks.

Author: Alexandra Kondrasheva, CK correspondent

http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/engnews/id/1195407.html

CK: Chechnya native accused of blowing up “Neva Express” declares his alibi

Caucasian Knot
23/8/2007

Chechnya native accused of blowing up “Neva Express” declares his alibi

Three persons were arrested under the case of blowing up the “Neva
Express” train: two St-Petersburg anarchists - Andrei Kalyonov and
Denis Zelenyuk, and Hasan Didigov, 25, a native of Chechnya.

Hasan Didigov does not plead guilty and insists on having alibi. Murad
Yunusov, his advocate, has informed that his client was detained on
August 19 on suspicion in involvement in the act of terror. Some days
later, the Malovisherskiy Court (Novgorod Region), following a
petition of the prosecutor’s office, made a decision on Didigov’s
freedom restriction measure - detention in custody.

In the opinion of the defender, the pretext for Didigov’s arrest could
be a slander by his cellmate, however, “the main pretext for his
arrest was his nationality,” the “Interfax” informs.

According to the version of the investigation, Didigov could allegedly
be the executor of the terror act, while Kalyonov and Zelenyuk acted
as organizers and “suppliers,” who provisioned the explosive, the
NEWSru.com writes.

In connection with arrest of Kalyonov and Zelenyuk, members of
anarchical initiatives of St-Petersburg made a statement refuting the
accusations of law enforcement bodies and asserting their alibi: “On
August 13, 2007, A. Kalyonov and D. Zelenyuk were in St-Petersburg,
and this fact can be confirmed by eyewitnesses.” In protest against
illegal detainment, Andrei Kalyonov announced a hunger strike

http://eng.kavkaz.memo.ru/newstext/engnews/id/1195402.html

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/08/suspected-iranian-agents-used-by-ap-to.html

[full of hidden urls]

Friday, August 24, 2007
SUSPECTED IRANIAN AGENTS Used By AP to Bash US Policy!

This is just shocking!
** The AP is using “friends” of the Iranian Regime as their experts to bash US policy and push the regime’s propaganda!

It is always disgusting to see the lengths the media will go to push their anti-US/anti-Bush agenda but today’s use of suspected agents to bash the US is way over the line!

Not only does the AP bash military officials for their statements on Iran but the AP is also using well known Iranian apologist Trita Parsi, for one, in bashing US policy on Iran:

An intensifying US campaign against Iran

It was Iran, warned Madeleine Albright, then-US envoy to the United Nations, that had forged a “tactical alliance” with a Somali warlord and “terrorists” in Sudan. Intelligence sources for the first time spoke of smuggled Iranian weapons. In Mogadishu, journalists were told that Iranian agents were training Somalis to make car bombs. But no proof was ever presented.

US charges against Iran’s role in Iraq are mounting. But analysts say that a history of unsubstantiated US claims against Iran should serve as a cautionary tale. The lesson to be drawn is not that Iran is guiltless in Iraq, they say, but one of restraint as a familiar drumbeat sounds.

The latest step in the Bush administration’s intensifying campaign to depict Iran as a disruptive force in Iraq is a decision to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guard force a “terrorist” group. That label, and a push for more UN sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, and continued charges of training, funding, and supplying anti-US militants in Iraq, experts say, could harm Iraq security talks between US and Iranian diplomats in Baghdad.

“The Americans are blaming Iran for everything that goes wrong, even if it’s not Iran’s fault, and Iran does the same with the US,” says Trita Parsi, the Washington-based author of the forthcoming “Treacherous Alliance: Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran and the US.”

“Decisionmakers in Washington are by-the-minute limiting their own maneuverability in how to deal with Iran, [thereby] making it more difficult to put the relationship on a positive track,” he says...

The result of this buildup of US allegations of Iranian involvement in Iraq could also prove to be a prelude to war: “If you can make the case that Iranians are actually killing Americans, that makes it extremely difficult for those opponents of military action to depict the administration as warmongering,” adds Parsi, also the head of the National Iranian American Council.

Iranian officials deny undermining US efforts in Iraq, though senior officers note that US forces throughout the Gulf and in Iraq and Afghanistan are often within Iranian missile range. Revolutionary Guard commander Gen. Yahya Rahim Safavi vowed this week that “America will receive a heavier punch from the guards in the future.”

Some hard-liners in Iran, who today exert strong influence over every power center in the Islamic Republic, welcome the steady drumbeat from Washington as proof of US ill intent, says Hadi Semati, a political scientist in Tehran.

“I haven’t seen this level before [of] a systematic [US] propaganda campaign, partly disinformation, partly probably true, but exaggerating it … to blame Iran for everything,” says Mr. Semati, who recently spent three years at think tanks in Washington. “It reinforces the idea that people have in this town [Tehran] that any discussions on Iraq are purely tactical, and that the Americans are not serious.”

The Iraq effort “is already a failure,” says Semati. “Blaming Iran serves a purpose of partially, or even mostly, from the perspective of hard-liners in Washington, making the situation look better.”

...”This administration has a track record of doing what it thinks is right, and doing it regardless [of the facts].... The debate is far less about ‘Can it be true?’ or ‘Can it not be true?’ “ says Parsi. The bigger picture, he says, is a regional power struggle between a strengthening Iran and an America weakened by debacle in Iraq.

Front Page Magazine ran a brilliant piece in April , “Iran’s Oil Mafia”, on several of the Iranian agents working in the US.

This is what the Iranian newspaper Aftab wrote about an interview with Trita Parsi in 2006, via that FrontPage article:

The government-owned newspaper Aftab published an interview with Trita Parsi on December 28, 2006 that underscores Parsi’s efforts on behalf of the Iranian regime..

Translation: “The conflict between Iran and the West on Iran’s nuclear file has entered a critical state. The government must now utilize all the possible resources to defend the national interest. In this, we have not paid enough attention to the potentially significant influence of the Iranian American society in moderating the extremist policies of the White House. In comparison of this untouched potential to the influence of the Jewish lobby in directing the policies of Washington in supporting Israel, we see the difference between what is and what could be.”

There is much more about Trita Parsi’s regime connections at FrontPage.

Here is more on Trita Parsi the leader of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) by one reader from an earlier post:

I woke up this morning to this wonderful expose of one of the most deceptive propaganda arm of the Islamic Republic in the West, the largest Iranian-American organization in the US, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC).

The true nature of this group headed by the mullah’s voice, Trita Parsi, is finally exposed...

Furthermore, I might add that I have seen Trita Parsi plus being paraded around by CNN, PBS and NPR as a “Middle East” expert and he has also become the darling of the rabid left who often cite his propaganda to back up their assertions in anything supports and relates the murderous mullahs’ agenda. Trita Parsi et al are extremly dangerous because they have an uncanny talent to torture logic, facts and reason to mind-bending extremes in order to have clueless politicians (Baker, pelosi et al) to believe monumentally ridiculous “explanations for terrorist acts committed by the IR”.

Is it too much to ask the Associated Press to use Iranian experts who are not working with the regime in Iran for their articles?

This AP article is not only factually misleading- It is openly promoting the propaganda of the Iranian Regime!

Previously:
Mullah Friends & Apologists in the US “Outed” at Front Page
Mullah Apologists Hope to Ban California Legislation Wednesday

UPDATE: (Friday PM) In the comments:

Just this week, NIAC board member Mohammad Navab wrote a comment on our site saying that he was not a board member for the Campaign Against Sanctions And Military Action In Iran (CASMII), as an article we had written alleged, and upon double checking CASMII had blanked any reference to him on their site. (But there was still the google cache.)

** You can check out the details HERE.

The moral of the story is, they are very concerned about public scrutiny, so keep the pressure on!

posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/24/2007 12:07:00 PM

[photos]

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/

Saturday, August 25, 2007
IRAQIS PROTEST TERROR- Hold Rally at Saudi Embassy

This was a welcome sight...
Iraqi-Americans held a protest yesterday denouncing terrorism in Washington DC.

Members of the Iraqi American Coalition for Peace demonstrate, Friday, Aug. 24, 2007, in front of the White House in Washington. The group was protesting against the international terrorism, which they said was backed and supported by ‘evil’ Saudi scholars living in Saudi Arabia. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Iraqis protested against terrorism in front of the White House and Saudi Embassy in Washington DC yesterday.
Iranian Mehr News wrote the article (the only one I found) on the protest:

TEHRAN, Aug 25 (MNA)— Hundreds of Iraqis residing in the U.S. converged in the front of the Saudi embassy in Washington on Friday condemning Riyadh’s policy towards Iraq, Sotaliraq said on its website.

With slogans “Down with Terrorism” and “Shia and Sunni Should Unite in Iraq,” demonstrators called for the immediate halt to Saudi support for terrorism in Iraq and the issuance of “takfiri” religious decrees (fatwas) by Saudi scholars.

Nazar Heydar, the director of Iraq information center in Washington and a member of the international center for campaign against terrorism, said “by this demonstration we meant to draw the attention of the world to Saudi Arabia as the real source of terrorism.”

“We believe that by issuing takfiri religious decrees and financial support of terrorist operations, Saudi Arabia is the real source of terrorism, not only in Iraq, but in the entire world. We read in the press that 50% of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi nationals,” he explained.

In a statement issued by Iraqi demonstrators, they called upon the U.S. to pressure Saudi Arabia to stop actions leading to the murder of innocents.

“We tried to submit a copy of the statement to the Saudi ambassador to Washington, but he refused to accept it,” Heydar noted.

Members of the Iraqi American Coalition for Peace take part in street theater as they demonstrate, Friday, Aug. 24, 2007, in front of the White House in Washington. The group was protesting against the international terrorism. (AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)

Notice the sign below- “70% of suicide bombers in Iraq are Saudi.”

posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/25/2007 03:19:00 PM

Israeli Columnist Glick Slams US Foreign Policy Fantasies

Caroline Glick, famed columnist at the Jerusalem Post, blasts the “fantasists” in the US for once again ignoring the threats by radical Islamic leaders threatening not just Israel, but all of Western civilization.

Column One: The rise of the fantasists

...The fantasists ignored completely Osama bin Laden’s declarations that his goal is to conquer the world in the name of Islam. They disregarded the political and cultural milieus marked by inexhaustible envy towards the West and the US that gave rise to al-Qaida and its sister organizations. Rather than acknowledge the reality of real war with real enemies, both camps of fantasists argued that instead of slaying these twin dragons, the US should appease them by serving them Israel for lunch.

These voices were relegated to the margins of public debate until the lead up to the 2004 presidential elections. Ahead of those elections, backed by George Soros’s financial muscle, the fantasists had an enormous impact of the debate in the Democratic Party. Politicians who until then had supported the war generally, and in Iraq particularly, clamored to decry it...

... A BRIEF look at recent statements by Iran’s leaders and its terrorist vassals suffice to show how cut off these views are from reality. Last Saturday, Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei said, “America and its followers are stuck in a whirlpool and they sink deeper as time passes. A dangerous future is predicted for them.” Wednesday Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad signaled that Iran will share its nuclear know-how with others saying, “If nuclear energy is something good, all nations should enjoy it on the basis of law.”

In an interview with Britain’s Independent, Iraqi Shiite terror boss Muqtada al Sadr admitted that his group trains with Hizbullah. Sadr said, “We have formal links with Hizbullah…. We copy Hizbullah in the way they fight and their tactics, we teach each other and we are getting better through this.”

On the occasion of the one-year anniversary of last year’s war against Israel, Hizbullah chief Hassan Nasrallah told Iranian television that Hizbullah acts at Teheran’s pleasure. “I am a lowly soldier of the Imam Khamenei. Hizbullah youths acted on behalf of the Imam Khomeini… and sent their blessings to the Iranian people,” Nasrallah said.

On August 6, Osama Hamdan, Hamas’s representative in Lebanon, told al-Kawthar television that Hamas is preparing for war not because expects it Israel to attack, “but because the final goal of the resistance is to wipe this entity [Israel] off the face of the Earth. This goal necessitates the development of the capabilities of the resistance, until this entity is wiped out.”

Amazing.
What is it going to take for America to come back to its senses?
And, how can the democrats claim that they will protect America when they still believe the real threats to America are coming from inside the White House?

posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/25/2007 11:56:00 AM

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/

[photos...once again they aimed at the children, there are more dead than the 28]

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/

BOMB BLASTS Hit Amusement Park in India

-UPDATED-
Four more bombs defused in amusement park!

Three bomb blasts went off in in Hyderabad, India today.
Two targeted an amusement park!
At least 44 are dead.

A man shines a flashlight on what appears to be blood following one of the blasts. CNN reports that the amusement park was holding a lazer light show when the blast went off.

The BBC reported:

At least 28 people have been killed in two explosions in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad, reports say. One of the blasts ripped through the Lumbini amusement park during a laser show, killing at least five people, media reports said.

Some 50 people were injured in the explosions, about 1200km (780 miles) south of the capital, Delhi.

In May, 14 people died when a bomb exploded in a mosque in Hyderabad, one of southern India’s biggest cities.

A bomb disposal squad member makes checks at Lumbini Park in Hyderabad after a powerful bomb blast on saturday. (Photo: Nagara Gopal Hindu News)

The other blast went off at a popular restaurant.
Hindustan Times has this:

Twenty four people died when an explosion ripped through Gokul Chat Shop at Kothi locality at around 7.50 pm, Andhra Pradesh Home Minister K Jana Reddy told reporters in Hyderabad.

In another blast five minutes earlier at a place five kilometres away, six persons perished in a blast in an auditorium in Lumbini Park near the state secretariat in the heart of the city when a laser show was on, he said.

Reddy said about 500 people were in the auditorium at the time of the incident. The blast ripped through the middle row of the auditorium when the show had just begun.

So powerful was the blast that some of bodies were flung into the air and scattered over the area. Hyderabad Police Commissioner Balwinder Singh said the toll at Lumbini Park, overlooking the picturesque Hussain Sagar lake, may go up as it was teeming with week-end crowd.

Police officials inspect the bodies of victims at the site of the blast at the Lumbani park, in Hyderabad, India, Saturday, Aug.25, 2007. A pair of bombings tore through crowded public areas in the southern city of Hyderabad on Saturday night, killing 28 people and leaving dozens more wounded, officials said. (AP Photo/Mahesh Kumar A)

HotAir says it may be revenge for the mosque bombing on May 14th.
Update: A third blast went off...

Medics move a person injured in a bomb blast on a stretcher, at a hospital in Lumbini Park in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad August 25, 2007. Three explosions within minutes, one at a street-side food stall and two in an amusement park, killed at least 34 people in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad on Saturday, police and officials said. (REUTERS/Krishnendu Halder)

An injured of a twin blast is shifted to a hospital, in Hyderabad, India, Saturday, Aug.25, 2007. (AP)

posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/25/2007 09:53:00 AM

[many hidden urls and a video of the fight]

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/

SMACKDOWN in Bolivian Congress- Lawmakers Come to Blows (Video)

-Updated and Bumped-

You may have see politicians go at it before—
But, you’ve never seen a Congressional smackdown like this!

Bolivian politicians brawl in the Chamber of Deputies:

That- Was Crazy!
Do you suppose they got much done after that explosion on the floor?
Voice of America reported on the clashes in Congress:

Opposition lawmakers in the Bolivian Congress have exchanged blows with pro-government legislators in an ongoing dispute over control of the nation’s judicial branch.

Fistfights broke out Wednesday as opposition lawmakers tried to stop their rivals from bringing charges against the nation’s highest court for suspending four of President Evo Morales’s judicial appointees.

Lawmakers from Mr. Morales’s party later voted to approve the charges.

Separately, an Assembly rewriting Bolivia’s constitution has suspended its work indefinitely due to violent protests in the southern city of Sucre over a proposal to move the seat of government there from La Paz.

Continuing the country’s leftward shift into the arms of Venezuelan Marxist Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced a joint venture between the two country’s militaries this week.
Cuba News reported:

On Wednesday, Morales inaugurated in Trinidad, capital of the department of Beni - which was the most affected by the natural disasters earlier this year - the construction of a protection system against floods.

The Bolivian leader inaugurated a joint engineering command between the armed forces of Venezuela and Bolivia to recover roads and announced that similar projects for the construction of roads will multiply across the Andean nation.

The BBC has more on the brawl.

Mabblog is following the Bolivian situation.
Former Bolivian Congressman and acquaintance Jose Brechner says it is just a matter of time before civil war breaks out.

UPDATE: Former Bolivian Congressman Jose Brechner writes in with this on the political situation in Bolivia:

Dear Jim, I´ll try to give you a briefing.

The party in government wants to impose a totalitarian-racist-socialist constitution (National Socialism) approved by simple majority which is illegal, it should be by two thirds of the votes and without the opposition they can´t get it done.

The new constitution should have been ready in August 6, the Congress did nothing in one year and now they postponed it till December. With the violent events, the Constitutional Assembly closed its doors indefinitely under Morales orders. (Illegally of course)

The government illegally destitute (disqualified) four judges (out of five) of the Constitutional Tribunal. This was the cause of the physical fight we saw on TV. (Separation of powers, the judges are independent)

Six out of the nine provinces (states) that make Bolivia are against the government, and they will go on strike on Tuesday 28, for 24 hours, protesting for the measures against the judges, the illegality of the simple majority of votes, and the defense of democracy.

Bolivia has two capitals: Sucre is the original site, but lost a civil war with La Paz in 1898. They remained being the “historical” capital keeping the judiciary branch of the government, but the executive and legislative branches moved to La Paz. Sucre wants to be the full capital again. There are more than 500 people on hunger strike in Sucre (their city) since August 15 pledging for it. They are in “state of emergency”, surrounded by thousands of Indians sent by Morales to oppose changing the site of the capital.

The government with the indians is threatening to take the facto measures. They gave an ultimatum till next week to end the “capital” issue. They want it to remain in La Paz, where most aimara Indians (Morales ethnicity) live and they are powerful, (around two million). They also want to move the Constitutional Assembly from Sucre to La Paz, so they have full control of everything.

As I told you in Prague, and wrote about it long before Morales took office: “if he gets into power there will be a civil war”. This might be the beginning.

It is awesome how people don´t see the reality of what we are dealing with, and I don´t mean only Bolivia, the whole world is the same. Bolivians are just more uncivilized.

My translator has too much work at her office and she can´t work for me right now, that´s why I didn´t send you more articles. Hezbollah is converting people to Islam and training them with weapons in Venezuela. How do you like that?

posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/24/2007 08:13:00 PM

[photos and video]

http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/

Iran Releases Photos From Public Flogging in Qazvin

The regime in Iran held a public flogging this week to further terrorize the people into submission.

Kamangir posted photos from the event including this one of the Iranian children.
(Warning- the photos are not easy to look at.)

The Daily Mail has the story on the public flogging.
But, they didn’t show the children in the crowd.

Two police officers hold the legs of 25-year-old Saeed Ghanbari and another his arms to ensure there is no escape from the punishment of 80 lashes handed down by a religious court.

Traffic was brought to a halt in Qazvin, 90 miles west of the capital Tehran, as more than 1,000 men gathered behind barricades to watch the public flogging.

...The Daily Mail forgot to mention the children in the crowd!

(Daily Mail)
Zombie News Network put the photos together in a video:

Saeed Ghanbari received 80 lashes for his immoral crime!

The Jawa Report is following this brutal story.

UPDATE: Atlas has a disturbing photo from a recent hanging in Iran. An August article reported that Iran publically executed over 30 individuals recently for plotting with the US.
Hat Tip Larwyn

posted by Gateway Pundit at 8/23/2007 12:53:00 PM

http://www.westernresistance.com/

August 25, 2007
Russia: Orthodox Church Tells Firebrand Muslim Cleric to Shut-up

Over the past six months it seems that with every few weeks tensions between leading Muslim and Russian Orthodox personalities continue to rise.

The latest event was last week when Father Andrei Kurayev, a professor at the Moscow Theological Academy and a popular writer and speaker, made the unusual public call upon Islamic leaders to rein in mufti Nafigullah Ashirov, co-chairman of Russia’s Council of Muftis.

``Individuals of his sort like to threaten war and conflict,’’ said Fr Andrei, speaking to Interfax news agency. ``They use threats and blackmail to make other people do what they want, or they will blow up the country. I would be happy if the Russian Muslim community could find a good reason to send Ashirov on a really long mission to some very secular state on the Arabian Peninsula in order that he might pursue his ideals over there.’’

Kurayev was reacting to a letter signed earlier this month by a group of muftis, including Ashirov, which accused the Russian Orthodox Church of ``clericalizing’’ Russian society. Since the collapse of communism, the Orthodox Church has gained greater influence in Russian society. One of its most controversial plans has been the proposal for pupils to study religion as a social sciences course.

The Russian constitution calls for separation of church and state, however. While the criticism about the overly close relation between the Orthodox Church and the Russian state is well-grounded, oddly enough there has been no criticism of Islam for its excessive influence in the public life of certain Russian republics and cities. During a tour of Chechnya last year, Western Resistance noted that Chechen children attending public schools were forced to follow and study Islamic traditions.

Yet, those same Russian `human’ rights groups in Moscow, some funded by western foundations, that often criticize the Orthodox Church, never make any criticism of Islamic clericalism.

The Russian Orthodox Church has a deeper historical beef with Islam. First, the country was subjugated to Tatar overlords starting in the mid 13th century until the late 15th century. The Tatars converted to Islam in the early 14th century; hence, Russia moaned under Islamic rule for almost 200 years. The price was paid in constant raids, kidnapping of women and children, and paying tribute.

Second, the Russian Orthodox Church still mourns the destruction of the great Orthodox empire, the Byzantine Empire, by invading Islamic Turkish armies. Russia had been converted by Byzantine missionaries from Constantinople over a 1,000 years ago, and always saw that empire as the font of its civlization. As late as the end of the 18th century the Russian czars and czarinas had hopes of liberating Constantinople.

Father Andrei said that the muftis are ``very dishonest’’ for their blaming the Russian Empire for supporting Christian missions among the Tatars, Russia’s second largest nationality, most of whom are culturally `Muslim’, though most tend to be non-religious. A large minority indeed are Christian.

``It looks as freedom of conscience was for them [Muslims] a right to own the minds of people they consider theirs,’’ said Kurayev. ``They simply declare 20 million Russians to belong to their faith only because they belong to particular ethnic groups, though in fact the Tatars are a normal European nation and as such are very diverse.’’

Interesting enough, Mufti Ashirov supports the Russian Islamic project -— a missionary project whose goal is to convert ethnic Russians to the Islamic cult.

Past tours of Russian `Muslim’ republics carried out by Western Resistance have shown that most residents of these `traditional’ Muslims lands do not care much for the Islamic cult. If given the freedom to choose most have little interest and desire to heed the teachings of a deranged and psychopathic 7th century Arabian warlord.

Instead of abolishing Islam once and for all, unfortunately, the regional governments of these `Muslim’ republics are promoting its own state-controlled version of Islam, thinking that it can preempt the more `radical’ strains that were imported from Saudi Arabia in the 1990s.

Any effort to bolster Islam in any form, however, will backfire. Many well-intentioned and otherwise good people who are searching for God will be misled toward a violent and hateful cult.

Posted by Jean de la Valette at 1:29 PM

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=35756

Friday, August 24, 2007
Russia confirms Soviet sorties over Dimona in ‘67
Russia confirms Soviet sorties over Dimona in ‘67
David Horovitz , THE JERUSALEM POST Aug. 23, 2007
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187779146277&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The chief spokesman of the Russian Air Force, Col. Aleksandr V.
Drobyshevsky, has confirmed in writing for the first time that it was Soviet
pilots, in the USSR’s most-advanced MiG-25 “Foxbat” aircraft, who flew
highly-provocative sorties over Israel’s nuclear facility at Dimona in May
1967, just prior to the Six Day War.

Gideon Remez and Isabello Ginor, who co-wrote the recent book Foxbats over
Dimona, which asserts that the Soviet Union deliberately engineered the war
to create the conditions in which Israel’s nuclear program could be
destroyed, on Thursday described this “extraordinary disclosure” as
“official confirmation of the book’s exhibit A and the source of its title.”

Published in June by Yale University Press, the Israeli duo’s book asserted
that the Soviets flew sorties over Dimona in the still-experimental and
top-secret Foxbats both to bolster a deliberate Soviet effort to encourage
Israel to launch a war, and to ensure that the nuclear target could be
effectively destroyed once Israel, branded an aggressor for its preemption,
came under a planned joint Arab-Soviet counterattack.

Soviet nuclear-missile submarines were said to have been poised off Israel’s
shore, ready to strike back in case Israel already had a nuclear device and
sought to use it. The Soviets were also said to have geared up for a naval
landing on Israel’s beaches.

The book, hailed by experts such as the former US ambassador to Israel and
Egypt Daniel Kurtzer for marshalling a “compelling argument,” nonetheless
featured what the authors acknowledged was a dearth of incontrovertible
documentation that would back up central aspects of their thesis. They noted
at the time that it was “entirely possible that few corresponding documents
ever existed,” that key documents may have been destroyed, and that “the
accounts of numerous Soviet participants refer to orders that were
transmitted only orally down the chain of command.”

However, a delighted Remez and Ginor told the The Jerusalem Post that
official confirmation of the Soviet Foxbat sorties had now been published by
Drobyshevsky in an article posted on the official Web site of the Russian
Defense Ministry. The “extraordinary disclosure of a hitherto secret
operation,” they noted, “apparently was included inadvertently - in a
statement that was published in a completely different context”: to mark the
anniversary of the test pilots’ school from which one of the pilots who
participated in the 1967 flights graduated.

The relevant section of Drobyshevsky’s article states (in translation): “In
1967, the military valor and high combat training of Col. Bezhevets, A.S.
(now a Hero of the Soviet Union, an honorary test pilot of the USSR, [and]
retired Air Force major-general), were demonstrated while carrying out
combat operation in Egypt, [and] enabled [him] to perform unique
reconnaissance flights over the territory of Israel in a MiG-25RB aircraft.”

Remez and Ginor said this high-level admission of the Soviet sorties, which
was first posted on the ministry’s Web site last October, “comes as close to
an official document as one can hope for in the foreseeable future, given
the prevailing circumstances in Russia.”

They noted that it corroborates the personal testimony of Bezhevets’s senior
colleague, Lt.-Gen. Aleksandr I. Vybornov, who is quoted in the book as
having described the missions on several occasions.

The book’s findings were first published by the Post on May 16, under the
heading “Soviets engineered Six Day War ‘to destroy Israel’s nuclear
program.’”
Remez and Ginor told the Post that this article “was widely reproduced” and
“aroused intensive discussion” in the FSU. Several respected news media
outlets, notably the Russian dailyKomsomolskaya Pravda, they said,
“contacted some of the veterans who were among the main sources for the
book, and they reiterated their accounts.”

Among such veterans confirming their stories was Gen. Vasily Reshetnikov,
the commander of the Soviet strategic bombers, said to have been given maps
for the planned strike at Dimona.

The “conventional view” of the events leading up to the 1967 war, Remez
noted when the book came out, “is that the Soviet Union triggered the
conflict via disinformation on Israeli troop movements, but that it didn’t
intend for a full-scale war to break out and that it then did its best to
defuse the war in cooperation with the United States.” The book, he said,
“totally contradicts everything that has been accepted.”

Having received information about Israel’s progress toward nuclear arms, the
book asserts, the Soviets aimed to draw Israel into a confrontation in which
their counterstrike would include a joint Egyptian-Soviet bombing of the
reactor at Dimona.

The Soviets’ intended central intervention in the war was thwarted, however,
by the overwhelming nature of the initial Israeli success, the authors
write, as Israel’s preemption, far from weakening its international
legitimacy and exposing it to devastating counterattack, proved decisive in
determining the conflict. Because the Soviet Union’s plan thus proved
unworkable, the authors go on, its role in stoking the crisis, and its plans
to subsequently remake the Middle East to its advantage, have remained
overlooked, undervalued or simply unknown to historians assessing the war
over the past 40 years.

The Israeli authors’ thesis, they told the Post this week, had now won over
Komsomolskaya Pravda’s Col. Viktor Baranets, a noted military correspondent
and former General Staff officer. They quoted him as having written recently
that “the time has apparently come to set the record straight. So far, the
facts have often been replaced by inventions. No one can dispute the
obvious: the USSR ‘orchestrated’ that war... The USSR was prepared for an
invasion of Israel. The confessions of our own officers prove this.”

The Russian media also recently contacted Bezhevets himself, the authors
said, but even though he has now been officially praised by his own Defense
Ministry for making the Foxbat flights over Israel, he denied doing so.
According to Remez and Ginor, this “indicates that Drobyshevsky’s [Defense
Ministry] statement relied not on the pilot’s testimony but rather on the
air force’s own documentation.” This, in turn, they said, “illustrates the
point... that full and direct documentation of the Soviet role in 1967 is
still being suppressed.”

Remez, a longtime prominent Israel Radio journalist, fought in the Six Day
War as a paratrooper. Ginor was born in the Ukraine, came to Israel in 1967
and is a noted analyst of Soviet and post-Soviet affairs.

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=35758

Friday, August 24, 2007
Excerpts: Denmark ‘rewards’ maritime piracy. Palestinian Poll. 24 August 2007
Excerpts: Denmark ‘rewards’ maritime piracy.Palestinian Poll. 24 August 2007

+++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 24 Aug.’07:”Editorial: Rewarding Piracy”
QUOTE:”This is not something
Saudi Arabia can view with disinterest”

EXCERPTS:
The announcement by the Danish Foreign Ministry that the crew of the Danish
bulk carrier Danica White seized by pirates off the coast of Somalia in June
has been released following the payment of a ransom is good news for those
involved, but nonetheless astounding.
There is an international convention that kidnappers are never rewarded,
certainly not publicly. ... Such silence is vital. Otherwise the message
will go out that piracy pays. But for some inexplicable reason, Denmark has
ignored this extremely important convention. It is bound to encourage piracy
and kidnapping. Further, Danish vessels sailing though the word’s piracy
hotspots are going to become top targets. The pirates now know the ransoms
will be paid if Danes are taken.
It is certainly not going to make the seas off Somalia, already among the
most dangerous in the world, any safer. On the contrary, piracy, after a
three-year decline, is on the rise again worldwide, and the coast off
Somalia is even more dangerous than ever. ... ..
That is not something Saudi Arabia can view with disinterest. The Somali
coast may be a long way from Denmark where the only maritime danger come
from the weather, but for vessels sailing through the Arabian Sea and Gulf
of Aden to and from Saudi ports in the Red Sea, it is a major issue. They
are at high risk.
It is difficult to see things getting better in the foreseeable future...
Into these murky waters, Danish officialdom has wandered with its eyes
tightly shut, making matters infinitely worse with the announcement of
ransoms paid.

+++ARAB NEWS (Saudi) 24 Aug.’07:”Palestinians Prefer Pro-West Govt”,Mohammed
Mar’i & Agencies
:QUOTE:”majority of the Palestinian public
generally believes that the situation worsened following Hamas takeover”

EXCERPTS:
RAMALLAH/JERUSALEM, 24 August 2007 : Palestinians prefer the Western-backed
government of Salam Fayyad to the sacked Cabinet of Hamas Premier Ismail
Haniyeh, according to an opinion poll published yesterday.
The poll published by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC)
following Hamas’ control over the Gaza Strip found that a majority of the
Palestinian public, 46.7 percent, generally believes that the situation in
the Gaza Strip worsened following Hamas’ takeover of the Gaza Strip,
compared with 27.1 percent who think that the situation has improved.
The poll also found that respondents blamed Hamas for the deadly internal
fighting that preceded the takeover, and support early elections, as called
for by President Mahmoud Abbas . . ..

Sue Lerner - Associate, IMRA

http://www.imra.org.il/story.php3?id=35770

Saturday, August 25, 2007
Palestinian infiltrators used sophisticated device to cross Gaza border wall - detected only when attacked
IDF: Gaza gunmen highly skilled
Palestinian infiltrators used sophisticated device to cross Gaza border
wall, army says
Hanan Greenberg YNET Published: 08.25.07, 18:26 / Israel News
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3441728,00.html

The device used by Palestinian infiltrators Saturday morning to cross the
wall separating Gaza from Israel is professional and sophisticated, IDF
Northern Gaza Brigade Commander Moni Katz said Saturday afternoon.

“This device may have been built with the help of information that came from
outside the Gaza Strip,” he said. Saturday morning, IDF soldiers killed two
heavily armed Palestinian gunmen who crossed into Israel near Gaza’s Erez
crossing.

Colonel Katz estimated that the two terrorists were assisted by two other
people as they crossed the nine meter (roughly 30 feet) fence. Later, the
collaborators went back into the Strip as the two gunmen headed north in the
direction of the Coordination and Liaison Administration at the Erez
crossing.

The two Palestinians were carrying guns, explosive devices, bulletproof
vests, and rifle magazines the army said.

“They opened fired at a short range.and hurled a hand grenade. Later, the
two continued north in the direction of the communities of Erez and Netiv
Ha’asara,” Katz said. “In fact, the moment they opened fire, we realized we
were dealing with a terrorist infiltration. Until that moment, because of
the heavy fog, it was very difficult to see what was happening.”

“We rushed troops to the area and at the same time sent forces to examine
the border fence and wall in order to see how many terrorists infiltrated
Israel,” the army official added.

Colonel Katz noted that the army did not receive an advance warning
regarding an intention to carry out a terror attack. However, because of the
heavy fog, troops implemented a special procedure of patrols along the
fence, he said.

“Troops who were on patrol were fired at, and this is how the terrorists
were identified,” Katz said.

The incident ended a short time later, as troops quickly surrounded the
terrorists and charged at them. In all, about 80 minutes passed from the
moment shots were first heard at Erez to the killing of the terrorists about
one kilometer inside Israeli territory. However, IDF troops continued to
scour the area in order to ensure no other terrorists were able to
infiltrate. Several hours later, the special deployment was called off.

‘System working well’

Even though the terrorists were able to cross into Israel, Colonel Katz
summarized the incident on a positive note.

“The crossing of the wall is obviously not a good thing, but this is an
incident that didn’t surprise us,” he said. “It was a night of very heavy
fog, and this kind of thing can happen. We can’t assign a soldier to guard
every meter of the wall and fence. Exactly for that reason, we have the
forces who are deployed here and know how to handle this kind of incident,
even after the terrorists cross (into Israel,)” Katz stressed.

“At the end of the day, we can see the system is working well. Yesterday we
thwarted an attack in the northern Gaza Strip that was meant to target IDF
soldiers, and this morning another attack was foiled that aimed to hit
Israeli targets,” he said.

Katz added that terror groups are escalating their efforts to carry out
attacks. He noted that the escalation process is also accompanied by
improved capabilities on the part of the terrorists.

“However, we’re well prepared for what’s happening, and in the last month
alone we thwarted six attacks in the vicinity of the border fence and
northern Strip,” he said. “At the end of the day, in the past two years,
with the exception of the incident near Kerem Shalom where Gilad Shalit was
abducted, we thwarted the numerous attempted attacks by terror groups,” he
concluded.

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